Left Behind
by Procrastinating.genius
Summary: This is the story of a survivor, of a girl with beaten lungs and a punctured heart. She is an expert at being left behind.


**I thought that I should release some of my feels. Please review and enjoy.**

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_"They're the ones I can't stand to look at, although on many occasions I still fail. I deliberately seek out colors to keep my mind off them, but now and then, I witness the ones who are left behind, crumbling amount the jigsaw puzzle of realization, despair, and surprise. They have beaten hearts, they have punctured lungs." —The Book Thief, Markus Zusack, page 5._

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Liesel clutched the familiar accordion in her trembling, ash covered hands.

Her _Papa's accordion._

Even though she had been sobbing and crying relentlessly for hours, her grief had supplied her with endless amounts of fresh tears. Her eyes stung with the need to weep for all the empty shells of everyone she had left behind on the mountains of rubble, snow capped with black soot.

Once again, she was abandoned. Once again, she had lost everything. Once again, she was left behind.

Under her breath, she murmured their names in hopes of comforting herself, by some unknown means. "Mama . . . Papa . . . Rudy . . ."

It never ended. She repeated them over and over. "Werner . . . Mama . . . Max. . ."

A choked sound made itself known, gagging out from the back of her throat. "I can't breathe!" She wept hoarsely, scarcely making a sound around the lump in her throat. The mayor and his wife turned to look at her from their seats in the car. "I-I can't _breathe._" She broke down in sobs, barely leaving herself room to suck up air between convulsive gasps.

The woman with fluffy hair placed a supportive hand on her shoulder, sympathy shining in her kind eyes while the mayor turned his pitiful look back on the road.

"It will be okay, sweetheart." The wife lied sweetly, Liesel nodding numbly in response. "You'll be fine."

. . .

She did not speak that day, or many days after, for fear of her voice wobbling like the way Mama walked. _Had_ walked.

(The thought is enough to spend the rest of the day staring out the window, two infinite rivers streaming from her dead eyes, as she attempted desperately to _not remember_.)

She didn't have anything she wanted to say, anyway.

Her grief-instilled silence, unfortunately, did not stop the screams from escaping her nightmares and filling her dark room in the mayor's house with their terrible noise.

Because of the sound-proof walls and doors, no one came to comfort her in the restless nights. That was okay, though, because in Liesels mind, she had her Papa there to soothe her.

His silver eyes would glimmer, even in the dark, and he'd put his arm around her shoulder. "_My darling girl,"_ he'd coo fondly_, "What is the matter?"_

She'd whisper to him back, because she was not yet ready to speak, and tell him how she missed him. How she missed everyone. And for those brief, glorious minutes, she'd be content.

But the dream she conjured every night would be snatched from her, in every respect of how he had been in real life, and Liesel would once again be tossed into the throes of monstrous regrets and torturous, consuming death.

Oh, how she despised reality.

. . .

It was during this mourning period when I visited the book thief.

She sat at her place in the window, and her tears etched indentations in their place on her cheeks. She said nothing but their names under her breath as I gazed on sadly and wondered briefly if she could see past the waterfalls.

Then, slowly, she broke her constant vigil to turn and face me.

The book thief stared me straight in the eyes. Even if she didn't know it.

As always, she did not say a word, even her mutters were silenced. It saddened me all the more to realize how she could sense me now, how well she knew me, knew Death. It crushed me to hear her pleas echoing in her head.

_"Why me? Why didn't you take me?" _Her thoughts sounded. _"Take me with you now. I'm ready."_

A single tear fell from my eye, and I whispered what I should have before.

"I'm sorry, child."

The girl broke my heart, twisted it within my chest.

*****A BRISK COMPARISON*****

**My heartbreak wasn't nearly as jagged as hers.**

I walked away from the house with the fancy carpets, from the mayor with ambitions and greed, from the woman with fluffy hair, and from the book thief with a hole in her chest.

She slowly twisted back to face the window, wood creaking as she did.

. . .

"We have to go." The woman informed softly.

Liesel nodded.

"We'll be leaving by early tomorrow. I have a new dress laid on your bed."

Liesel nodded.

The woman's faced lined with worry before smoothing out into an unconvincing façade of contentment. (It something Liesel will learn to do, in later years. She will do it very, very well) "There's dinner on the stove, if your hungry." Without acknowledging her nod, she walked out, her red lips pressed together in concern.

Today was the first day with no snow since she came. She glared at the blue cloudless expanse. There was small comfort in the sky accompanying your sorrow.

Boys played football on the street below her. She watched them wistfully.

Unwanted memories flooded her mind the same way misery flooded her to the very tips of her toes.

A boy with lemon-colored hair. Feet thumping wildly toward a leather ball. Warm smiles in the icy weather.

Rudy.

Liesel squashed her eyes closed around the tears as cold hands entered her chest and shoved the air from her lungs, gripping them so no oxygen could enter. Her heart climbed up to avoid the chill and she struggled to breathe around the steady rhythm in her throat.

A single sob pushed itself from her aching chest.

_Rudy_.

. . .


End file.
